


Amnesiac

by xLion_Heartx



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: 7 year age difference, Amnesia, Childhood to U4 Epilogue, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, I'm so sorry, Quite a bit of angst, Reader doesn't talk much, Reader goes through a lot, Slow Burn, smut if people want it, when she does the boys are v proud but also v shook
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xLion_Heartx/pseuds/xLion_Heartx
Summary: Your first memory is that little knock on the door to Saint Catherine's Girls' Home. Before that, nothing.You're a feisty child, bitter about your apparently incurable amnesia and sometimes the nuns don't know what else to do but leave you in your room to sulk and read until you feel better.Armed with nothing but the clothes on your back, your love of history, and a friendship built between two equally delinquent boys from the Boys' Home across town.Hopefully, the weekly window visits from the pair can keep you sane while you grow up.





	1. Mahogany Doors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick chapter, simple, introductory. I hope it's not too bad, next chapter will be meeting Victor Sullivan (childhood events take place in one chapter and that will be the case until the event of Sam's 'Death' and eventual return - since that is where the plot of Uncharted 4 starts)

_A knock. That's all it took for you to wake up. A knock against a mahogany door._

_You stumble backwards, almost tripping over one of the stairs leading up to the door and standing back in the thundering rain. You aren't sure whether the wet feeling against your cheeks is the rain, or your own panicked tears... or both._

_A woman opened the door, a nun, you realised. She pulled you inside, wrapping a fluffy towel around your small shoulders, another smaller one being handed to you so you could dry your hair._

_They were speaking words, so were you but you couldn't hear them; just watch their mouths move and feel the vibrations of your own non-existent voice within your throat. It was always like his when you remembered it, like your amnesia was still in effect but slowly dying out of your system, taking the ten years of your life before that point way with it._

_Memories you'd never be able to get back and the thought of losing your current ones always lingered._

* * *

You woke up to a knock on your window, pushing yourself to sit and look over at the two smug boys hanging from the outer windowsill of your room. Whatever look you had on your face must've given away some semblance of a mood you hadn't tuned into yet because Sam held up a large bag of takeout from the 24hr diner that was situated equal distances from both orphanages. You managed a small smile, pushing yourself out of bed and making your way to your window to open it up and let the Morgan boys inside.

"So, what's got our little kitten in such a bad mood?" Sam asked, pouting dramatically as he and Nate took their shoes off and hopped up onto your bed. The nickname had developed over the half-year you'd known them from you being the youngest of the trio; seven years younger than Sam and two younger than Nathan.

"Looks like you had that dream again," Nate said, sliding out of the way to allow you to sit between the two brothers in front of your pillows as Sam began unpacking the takeout bag onto the main part of your bed. 

Sam said your name as softly as he did every time Nathan managed to translate the look you could never seem to control. You rested your head against Sam's side as he wrapped an arm around your waist and Nathan took one of your hands; it was routine, you rarely told them what happened in full, just snippets of mahogany doors and arches, confused and putridly sympathetic looks from nuns. It was those stupid dreams, those stupid nuns and those stupid mahogany doors that kept you trapped inside those stupid walls that kept you from talking, you were scared that the minute you opened your mouth you'd choke up, break down, lose your memories - the first two had always happened when you decided to risk talking to the Morgan boys, they accepted your silence even if they had expressed a want to hear your voice.

Sometimes you forgot how you even made friends with these boys, how they managed to worm their way into visiting you weekly (sometimes multiple times a week) and then you open your journal, reading the accounts you'd written out of every day of your life since you'd woken up already nine (now ten) years into living. Sometimes you wanted to find out who your family was, who had taken care of you before whatever happened, if they had looked for you; but the thought of it made you sick for some reason, like somewhere in your closed off mind you  _knew_ something was never right with your real family and that seemed to take you away from wanting to search for them and just sticking with the people who had explicitly stated that you were part of their family.

It wasn't much of a family really, no parental figures, the oldest of you three having been kicked out of his orphanage when he was considered old enough, and the children being held under such tight supervision during the day it was nearly impossible to really see you all as a family. But you were and it was going to stay that way for a very long time, you knew that. (Be there new additions or changes in personal dynamics later on or not).

You could consider life good, they managed to convince you of that.

* * *

 

Little did you know that your current dynamic was going to change altogether when the boys' next visit came around; you would help them because that was what you did, sure you wouldn't be as good at jumping rooftops as them but they would help you. You'd make it to the large house, precious journal tucked away in a satchel hanging from your shoulders. You would find the boys' mother's book on pirates, people that you'd been reading about in your free time when Nate and Sam weren't around because they had introduced you to a whole different section of history you never looked at before. 

You would meet the woman who bought all of Cassie Morgan's things, she would call the police before she knew who the three of you were and would shortly die of a heart attack just when she's about to let you off the hook. The three of you would run, almost get caught and make it to the outskirts of town; you would be fugitives, no way you could go back. Not that you had anything to go back for.

Sam would come up with a brilliant idea. Your last names would change (or you'd be given one in your case) since they would be looking for Samuel and Nathan Morgan and you, a single named girl with no way of tracking her down - you were practically invisible already. But you'd take on the names of pirates, because why not, it was easy to twist history to fit the narrative you needed it to (especially with how uneducated in English history most people were).

So the boys would take the name Drake, Samuel Drake and Nathan Drake, descendants of the infamous pirate Sir Francis Drake.

And you? You would become an Avery, like Henry Avery, Now you would have a last name for people to believe you had some past with. 


	2. Victor Sullivan

So, three years had passed since you and the Drake brothers ran away from authorities. At a young age you and Nate had become interested in the role of treasure hunters since you were all named after pirates - Drake and Avery, what a trio - and, while at first, he was a little reluctant to get involved in such a dangerous process with two children (teenagers you'd often reminded him), Sam had caved at the idea of treasure and money.

Sam had turned twenty the day you arrived in Cartegena, Columbia, Nate already 15 and you already 13. Even though Sam had stated for the two of you to stick close by him while you were there, you and Nate didn't exactly listen though. The pair of you running off when Sam was asking for directions to the nearest hotel they could book a room in, your trio having moved hotels every other day just in case any of you got into trouble or (somehow for some reason) someone was following you or something.

Since the weather in Columbia was rather warm at the time, you and Nate hadn't dressed in many layers. Nate had the red sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows, his jeans were baggy but not to the point where he was unable to climb or jump across buildings; the bag across his torso was tight like the laces of his trainers and he was almost entirely covered in dirt and mud stains from the continuous parkour he had an affinity towards. To be fair, you were almost as rugged looking as he was, your hair kept out of your eyes (be that by it being exceptionally short or tied back in a ponytail) and you had a large bandage wrapped around your knee from when you'd cut it jumping across building roofs with Nate when you were looking for a birthday gift for Sam - he appreciated the sentiment but was pretty concerned when you came limping back into the hotel room with blood dripping down your leg (" _Shit, Kitten, what the hell did you do to yourself_ "). You wore denim shorts that stopped just above your knees, the ends of the sleeves of your black shirt rolled up to your wrists since they were too long; your small backpack was pulled tight like Nate's satchel and your shoelaces were tucked into the sides of your trainers.

You escaped to the museum of Sir Francis Drake, dioramas of the many places the pirate had ventured in his lifetime were spaced around the tile floor, other display cases were along one wall, holding preserved items that either belonged to or were connected to Drake and a row of cannons lined the opposite wall; but the two of you were only there for one thing. You split up to look around the ground floor, admiring the displays but not finding the item you were looking for.

"Let's check upstairs," Nate said quietly, grabbing your hand and jogging over to the stairs. 

You passed a security guard on your way into the upstairs and tried your best to just look like curious kids who had scurried away from their parents; there, in the middle of the room, was the case you were looking for. The two of you hurried over to it, Nate looked at the ring with admiration, the phrase 'Sic Parvis Magna' scrawled around it clear as day and you bent your torso, hands just above your knees, to look at it closely.

"An interesting little thing, huh Little Lady?" An unfamiliar voice spoke up from next to you. You straightened up and realised Nate wasn't next to you anymore, instead, an older man stood with his hands on his hips looking at you with a small smirk slightly hidden by his moustache. You nodded at his statement, a small, nervous smile tugging at your lips.

"Where are your parents?" He asked. You panicked for a moment before shrugging helplessly, why the hell was he talking to you? Was he trying to freak you out so you'd get away from the display? "You should probably go and find them then, huh?" He  _was_ trying to get rid of you!... Why?

You shifted your backpack on your shoulders and nodded mutely, taking a step away from the display and scuttling back towards the stairs, you turned around for a split second to see the man wave you off and for Nate ('hidden' behind another display) point upwards. The roofs. You gave a tiny wave - mostly to Nate but it made the guy stop watching you - and ran down the stairs, exiting the museum and rounding a corner to the quietest place for you to shimmy up to the roof of the building. 

You were crouched up there for barely ten minutes before Nate was thrown out of the building, he brushed himself off and yelled at the man who kicked him out before grunting and looking up. You waved at him and he smiled before he signalled for you to follow a little behind him, you then noticed the man that had spoken to you sauntering off into the city and Nate wanted to follow him. As you followed, you tried not to be too obvious about your position (not that many people looked up) and you took the safest routes so that you wouldn't scratch yourself up any more than you already had done.  You sent a questioning gaze to Nate as he appeared on the top of the building opposite to you, he didn't reply, watching the man through a window you couldn't fully see through and you grumbled but followed him further until you had to drop down to the market floor you'd arrived at when he'd signalled you to.

"You run ahead but avoid the guy as best you can okay," he pointed to a street he was going to slip down after doing whatever he was going to, "try and run passed me there and just go in a big loop, meet me back at the museum by sunset."

You nodded, splitting from him when you passed through a small crowd and spinning around to jog to an alley between buildings where you could easily stand and wait for him. A fleeting thought entered your mind as you sped towards Nathan, crashing into him and glaring at each other as he pressed something into your hand and you both split up again.

_What was Sam doing?_

* * *

In actuality, Sam wasn't doing much other than looking for the two of you. When he'd finished talking to the stranger he'd turned around to see the both of you gone. He went to the hotel you would be staying in first, the three of you knew exactly where it was but asking for directions was a good way of you looking like travellers or tourists lost in the winding city; he had hoped to find you and Nate there, but he hadn't. So he dumped his bag and left the building, he'd go back by sunset if he couldn't find you on his search.

He miraculously managed to  _just_ miss you when he found the museum he knew the three of you were going to look at the next day, he'd asked security if they had seen kids (" _teenagers!_ " your voices in his head yelled) of your descriptions and all he got in return was: "the girl left when an older man spoke to her and my colleague threw the boy out a few minutes after her." Which was a mix of alarming and frustrating.

When he was wandering the streets he  _thought_ he saw you in his peripherals leaping across gaps between buildings and nearly had a heart attack before he looked in that direction and nothing was there. He couldn't have imagined it, could he? It could have just as easily been another reckless kid or loose animal, but with the pair of you gone - you were  _his_ responsibility,  _he_ had to take care of you - everything seemed to set him on edge; what if one of you got yourself killed and the other couldn't handle the guilt and ran off or worse? When he was heading back to the hotel and the gunshots rang out in the distance he had panicked but told himself not to... what kind of trouble could you and Nate possibly get yourselves into that meant you'd get shot at. (A lot actually, whether it came back to bite the two of you in twenty years time or just affected you now the pair of you did something pretty extreme).

He sat at the foot of one of the double beds, head in his hands: how on earth had he managed to lose  _both_ of you? Sometimes he was grateful none of you had families, if you did he'd be dead. Not that the guilt wasn't doing that to him already.

A knock on the door brought him back to the room, he glared at the wood, thinking about ignoring it before another persistent knock permeated the silence. He pushed himself to stand and marched over to the door ready to tell whoever was there to go away; his words died in his throat the minute he pulled the door open, Nathan stood there rather sheepishly, you on his back and a man stood behind you - at first Sam thought he was a cop but realised he looked nothing like one. He grabbed Nate's arm and yanked him inside as the older man held his hands up in surrender, he heard Nate grunt in pain and looked down at the two of you, fully taking in your appearances.

Nate had put you down and was hovering a hand over his upper arm that had a bandage wrapped around it, he looked a little more rugged than he had that morning and there was a thick string looped around his neck with something hanging hidden in his shirt. Sam's eyes checked over you then, the bandage around your knee seriously needed changing - it was as grubby as your clothes - but you had a second wrapped firmly around your bruised wrist, keeping it from moving.

"What in God's name did you two do?!" He exclaimed, not caring about other tourists in adjacent hotel rooms. The unfamiliar man stepped into the room, closing the door, "and who the  _hell_ is he?"

"The name's Victor Sullivan. My friends call me Sully."

"He saved us," you piped up suddenly, rubbing your left arm with your not injured hand.

"So the Little Lady speaks."

Sam looked near infuriated, Nathan popping back into his vision, waving his one good arm, "she's not lying. We stole this and apparently some English lady wanted it. We ran, got shot at - clearly - and he saved our asses from getting killed. Plus! He said he'd teach us a few things about being treasure hunters!"

**x ~ x**

It had taken a little while for Nate to calm Sam down, but eventually, he'd done it and let Sam check his arm (which Sully had fixed up over dinner) before letting the teen crash on one of the beds. Sully bought out a room near to yours so that you and Nathan didn't think he was running off, but also to make sure Sam knew he meant no harm to his brother and whatever you were to them.

You were still awake, sat cross-legged on the side of the bed that Nathan wasn't sleeping on; Sam was awake too, sat on the other bed staring at you.

"Seriously, Kitten, the first thing you say to me in weeks is about your life being saved by a stranger. I thought I at least deserved a  _hello_ before anything else," he said, somewhat jokingly.

You knew he didn't mean to corner you into positions where you had to speak to him, he understood why you relied on Nate to relay messages, but you also understood why he did it sometimes: if you always had someone translating looks and gestures, you'd never grow out of your irrational phobia of speaking.

"Sorry," your voice was quiet, you were working on your volume in your own time; humming and singing helped with that.

Sam slid off the bed to sit closer to you on the floor, "I know. What'd you do to your wrist?" He gestured his head at the wrapped joint.

"Broke it. Landed badly when I was following Nate."

"That how he got shot? Helping you?"

You nodded, he got hurt because you did, you would've both been fine if you hadn't gotten grabbed and fell onto the building Nate had jumped to. You attempted to wipe away the tear that had slipped from your eye but Sam beat you to it, pulling you into a hug as he did so.

* * *

So, the whole 'we're totally descendants of pirates' schtick with Sully didn't exactly last as long as you would have liked it to; well, it lasted until you turned 16 so three years was still a good amount of time. You'd been in Greece looking for an old Greek Goblet some anonymous businessman was paying Sully and Sam to find, you and Nate came along as extra hunters. You were actually pretty useful, Nate (being 18 by this point) actually managed to flirt some answers from a girl on an opposing treasure hunting group and you, with your far smaller frame, were able to clamber into tighter caverns to find alternative ways for the boys to get through the tunnels and whatnot.

The four of you had gained plenty of scars since Columbia; Nate's clearest one from the gunshot wound on his arm, that one hadn't faded at all, you had a small dented scar in your wrist from when you'd broken it, the scar on your knee from the same journey. Sam had a couple on his face from fistfights he'd gotten in and Sully even had a couple though they were hidden by his moustache.

You'd started talking a little more often than before, though you were still naturally rather quiet. You were laying on your stomach in an open cavern that your group had deemed safe, taking a break to fight off the exhaustion clawing at you. Sully and Nate had wandered off through a couple clear tunnels to see if they could find which way to go when you'd all rested up. You chewed on a lolly stick to keep your teeth from tearing at your lips and twirled a pencil in your hand as you flicked through your journal to find the next clean page; this was your seventh journal (your others stowed away in your backpack, you had to have them with you).

"Well damn," you said with a small giggle, "we can say I'm officially sixteen."

"No shit, already? It's already been seven years since you popped up outta nowhere?" Sam chuckled, leaning against the wall next to you, "Jesus, that means I'm turning twenty-three soon."

Nate skidded to a sitting position in front of the two of you a second later, "so, uh, guys..." his voice was much deeper now and you'd be lying to yourself if you didn't think it was incredibly attractive, but then again both Drakes were, weren't they? "I kinda slipped up."

Sam eyed him oddly before his eyes caught Sully standing at one of the entrances to the cavern, his arms folded, "Little Brother what did you do?" he asked, eyes not leaving Sully.

"The kid here finally gave away that the three of you aren't descendants of pirates," Sully stated. You winced.

"Look, the minute it happened I told him why we went with those names! I even told him our tragic past, Sam! He doesn't care, it's fine, please don't be mad." Nate spoke fats, defending himself immediately. 

"I was bound to find out eventually wasn't I? Now, what I don't know is the backstory of our Little Lady here, I hear it's your birthday."

You closed your journal and looked at the brothers, you smiled tightly at them before jumping to your feet and going over to Sully. You grabbed his wrist and went on a wander through the tunnel he and Nat hadn't gone down. "Listen, we don't tell people what we've been through because we hate the pity... if you-"

"I won't, I swear."

So you relayed your story to him, it took a while because of all the pauses you had to take to make sure you didn't burst into tears; you seriously had no idea why, after seven years, you still couldn't talk about yourself without choking up. It seemed pathetic, but Sully didn't say anything, just handed you a small golden disk with a small chain attached to it.

"Happy Found Day then, Little Lady."

The pair of you walked back, the treasure wrapped around your dented wrist.

 

 


End file.
